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player ready...There’s now a plan for the former Colonial Golf Course property at Ridge Road and Cline Avenue in Griffith, if the town can get the three different property owners on board.
Former Munster Town Engineer Jim Mandon, now a project manager with Robinson Engineering of Merrillville, presented the Town Council with three different options for Griffith Park Plaza during Tuesday’s meeting. The best option, according to Mandon, would assume there are no big-box anchors for the 47-acre site and would build four separate strip malls with shared parking.
The outlots, which contain Jedi’s Garden, White Castle, Pizza Hut, BMO Harris Bank, and Popeye’s Chicken wouldn’t be affected by the plan, Mandon said. The K-Mart, Payless Shoesource, Dollar Tree, King Buffet, Rainbow clothing store, Cash Advance, Radio Shack, Armed Forces recruiting center and other entities could be, however.
Parking requirements written into the plaza when it was built prove problematic, Mandon said, because the parking was calculated independently for each store.
“You have these huge, combined lots, but the parking isn’t used at the same time,” he said. “In Schererville, the town has a provision to share parking among stores if peak demands are shown.”
The town of Schererville also has stringent design standards incorporating green elements in 75 percent of its parking, according to Mandon.
“They should get something in front of the Plan Commission,” he said.
The plan also looked at stormwater retention; with the current set up, there’s a huge amount of asphalt and roof draining into a much-too-small storm sewer, Mandon said. There are, however, two acres of grassland on the property’s northeast side that can be converted to hold the large amounts of water.
Getting the three property owners – Garrison Central LLC, Griffith Park Plaza LLC and CAZ Real Estate – to agree, Mandon said, has always been the biggest issue in getting the property into shape. That the town is taking interest in redevelopment may work in its favor, though.
“I think it’s great that the town has taken an active interest,” Mandon said.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.